Lawmaker wants to push back high school start time

Monday, Dec. 20, 2004 | 11:08 a.m.

Like many parents, Assemblyman Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, wants to hear less moaning and groaning by Clark County teens when they are pried out of bed on school days -- and he thinks it should also lead to better test scores.

When the Legislature gets under way in February, Beers plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit the state's high schools from starting required classes earlier than 8 a.m.

Beers said he first became interested in the issue while researching student performance on the Nevada State High School Proficiency Exam, a prerequisite for graduation. Clark County's students lag far behind their peers in the rest of the state on the exam and also have a higher dropout rate. Beers wanted to know why.

Clark County's high schools are larger than those in other districts but class sizes are about the same, Beers found. While high school start times in Northern Nevada hover between 7:50 and 8:15 a.m., however, Clark County's -- the state's largest district accounting for 70 percent of student enrollment -- start at 7:10 a.m.

"Teenagers don't perform well early in the morning -- this isn't a big secret," said Beers, whose 16-year-old daughter attends Palo Verde High School. "And yet we expect them to be little sponges absorbing knowledge at the time of day when they're at their worst. Perhaps somebody can explain that to me."

Agustin Orci, deputy superintendent of instruction for the Clark County School District, said similar bills have been presented in the past. While there is some research that suggests teenage students may benefit from a later start time, practical limitations would make it difficult to carry out Beer's plan in Clark County, Orci said.

"Transportation would be a big hurdle," Orci said. "We don't have enough buses or drivers as it is. If we moved the high school start time we'd probably be looking at having to rearrange schedules for the elementary and middle schools as well."

Also, many parents rely on their older children to pick up younger brothers and sisters who get out school at a later time, Orci said.

"This is the type of proposal where our parents and teachers and the community will probably have a lot to say," Orci said.

Donn Livoni, superintendent of the Churchill County School District where high school classes begin at 8:15 a.m., said he believes the students benefit from the later start time. However, Livoni said, it's difficult to point to the start time alone as the reason why his district's students had a higher pass rate on the state's proficiency exams than their peers in Clark County.

"There's so many variables involved, I'm not sure there's a benefit to isolating one factor like start times," Livoni said. "You also have to ask, 'What's a student's home life? Is there an enforced bedtime? Are they getting proper nutrition?' "

Livoni said he had worked in districts that alternate class period assignments, giving one subject the first time slot on Monday and a later time slot on another day.

"It's a great system because you don't have kids always falling asleep in math or jumping all over the place during Spanish because it's right before dismissal," Livoni said. "The rotating schedule means all of the teachers share the good and the bad times for kids."

In 1997 the start time for Minneapolis' seven high schools was moved to 8:30 a.m. with dismissal at 3:20 p.m. Kyla Wahlstrom -- now interim director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota -- conducted a study of the schools in 2001, determining that four years of the later start time had yielded improved attendance rates but little gains in overall student achievement.

Wahlstrom, in an interview with the Sun, said other communities have experimented with later start times but often give up before giving the change time to work. In Kentucky, one school district used a later start time for just six weeks before reverting to the earlier schedule, Wahlstrom said.

"This isn't a quick fix -- you need at least three years of solid data," Wahlstrom said. "The key issue in making a successful switch is that districts, schools and parents are all involved and given as much information as possible on the pros and cons to make their decision."

Research has shown that adolescents have unique biological clocks. Most teenagers, regardless of bedtime, don't drift off into the deepest and most critical sleep stage until after 11 p.m., Wahlstrom said.

"The rhythm of the teenaged body, the teenaged brain, is not amenable to change," Wahlstrom said. "Young children love getting up early and adults are able to adjust to shift work," Wahlstrom said. "But the rhythm of the teenaged body, the teenaged brain, is not amenable to change."

Beers said the truth of Wahlstrom's arguments play out every school day morning at his Summerlin home with daughter Lindsey and 9-year-old son Kyle, who attends Lummis Elementary School.

"Lindsey's not exactly what anyone would call cheerful first thing in the morning," Beers said. "Meanwhile her brother is up and on the Nintendo by 6 a.m., bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, ready to tear into every opportunity in life."

Lindsey Beers said she used to go to bed between 10 and 11 p.m. but found it too difficult to wake up early in the morning for class at Palo Verde High School, where she is a junior. So now she turns in around 8 p.m. and gets up at 4 a.m., spending two hours on homework before catching a ride with her mother to school at 6:20 a.m.

She's hoping to graduate early this year and attend the University of Nevada-Reno where she'll have more of a say over her school day start time.

"Sometimes I try to go to bed at six if I know I have a lot to do the next day," Lindsey Beers said. "That's not normal."